Bringing Forth Generativities Within Relational Disquiet: An Interview With Karl Tomm

Abstract

From August 16th to 20th of 2023, the Calgary Family Therapy Centre (CFTC) 50th Anniversary and Conference: Bringing Forth Generativities Within Relational Disquiet was held in Calgary, Canada. The theme of the conference was relational disquiet, a notion introduced at the CFTC to raise awareness that something is experienced as amiss, uneasy, restless, or a sense of unfairness when something is experienced as not right during the therapeutic process. In preparation for the conference, we interviewed Dr. Karl Tomm, founder and senior advisor of the Calgary Family Therapy Centre and a professor of Psychiatry at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. In this article, we present Karl's interview, where he explains the notion of disquiet as a relational response to unwanted differences about hopes or desires emerging in our interactions with one another. Karl shares a clinical example of a possible transition from disquiet to generativity in a family therapy process. We offer some theoretical reflections on how Karl navigates disquieting interactions in family therapy conversations and discuss potential actions that family therapists can take to bring forth generativities from within relational disquiet.